Ex-Buc Jagodzinski a phony?

by Roland Johnson on September 3, 2009

Lack of direction, disarray, and just overall aloof can sum up the brief stint of former Buccaneers offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski with the team. Looking for precision and a sense of direction it got neither as time went on.

It seems, that the Bucs or in this case Raheem Morris and Mark Dominik were looking for a tireless worker and someone who would pour his heart & soul into helping guide the team, managing every aspect of the offense right down to even the most mundane set of details. What they got could be summed up in one word phony.

It’s quite possible that based on Morris’ press conference this afternoon, of course reading into a bit, you get the sense that maybe Jagodzinski just didn’t have the mental aptitude to effectively install and run an offense from the ground floor up.

Can you define more direction and precision?
“Where do you want to go now? We got the zone scheme in. We got the vertical passing game in. We got everything we got going on. Now what is next? Where do we want to go? What are the variables off the situations? What are we going to do off of that? How are we going to do off of that? What is the plan? Who’s in charge of this who’s in charge of that? Just those things — that is what we are talking about with direction, it is me being a leader of our football team and where we need to go.”

When did you first get the feeling that Jagodzinski wasn’t the right guy for the job?
“Like I said, it’s a constant evaluation throughout the process. As you go you want to create the most dynamic staff you can. You have the opportunity to bring in a guy like Jeff Jagodzinski while you already have Greg Olson on your staff, and you have a Pete Mangurian, Rich Mann and all of those guys. You want to put them all together and get them going. We needed more direction and more precision. We weren’t getting it at the time, so we made the change. That’s where we are.”

Be specific as you can in terms of what was missing from Jagodzinski. Was he not well versed as an offensive coordinator or playcaller, or both?
“I have a lot of respect for Coach Jagodzinski. But we’re at the point now where we need to be more precise and more detailed. We need to have more direction in terms of where we’re going to go. I just didn’t have it right now, for whatever reason. That’s about as detailed as I can get.” Source: PewterReport.com

Talk about a season already filled with uncertainty getting even further away from what was supposed to be a team coming together as one cohesive entity, just took it’s first major blow.

How will the players respond, how does the rest of the staff manage to put the pieces back in order, let alone cope with such a drastic blow to team chemistry or does the subtraction of Jagodzinski ultimately forge a bond that can lead the team all the way through the season and through a playoff push.